Haridwar: As people across the country perform ‘pind daan’ to honour their ancestors during Pitri Paksha (a period in the Hindu lunar calendar when homage is paid to ancestors) — which is being observed from September 1 to 17 this year — a ‘technology versus tradition debate’ has been kindled in Haridwar where priests are divided on whether performing the after-death ritual online is valid and “in accordance with tradition.” While Ganga Sabha, the apex body of priests in Haridwar, has taken exception, saying holy scriptures don’t allow for the ritual to be conducted online and “it won’t be accepted by the departed souls”, some priests are willing to adapt to changing times.
Speaking to TOI, Ganga Sabha general secretary Tanmaya Vashishtha said, “Our scriptures stipulate that a priest has to physically perform the annual ritual of ‘pinddaan’, ‘shraadh’ and ‘tarpan’ on behalf of a person in the specified period. So, how can this be done online?”
In a similar vein, Ganga Sabha president Pradeep Jha alleged that “online pind daan is nothing but a deception”, adding that priests who are doing it are “simply performing rituals out of greed for money.”
“Performing such traditional acts online rob the rituals of their sanctity, degrade our profession and insult a holy place. If a priest has to perform the rituals for another person, proper authorisation (varan sankalp) by the said person is needed and for that, either the priest goes to the person or the person meets the priest. Otherwise, the ritual is ineffective. I have advised all those performing pind daan online to desist from corrupting the tradition,” Jha said.
An official at Gayatri Tirth Shantikunj in Haridwar, which is offering online pind daan though said that using technology to conduct a ritual was acceptable to them. “We see no harm in paying respects to one’s ancestors through this medium especially since many people cannot be physically present in Haridwar due to the pandemic,” said the official who did not wish to be named.
Vipul Sharma, a priest who performed online pind daan for around half a dozen devotees from Jammu and Kashmir this month, told TOI that he adopted the online mode since “my clients wanted to get the rituals done during this period only but could not be physically present.” “None of them had any problems doing it online and so we went ahead through this medium,” he added.
Sonia Mehta from Delhi, who got the rituals done online for her mother, saw nothing wrong in it either. “It felt like I was doing it the traditional way on the Ganga banks,” she told TOI.